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		&lt;p&gt;In his blog article "&lt;a href="http://news.com.com/2061-12572_3-6114238.html"&gt;It's time to reconsider Google?&lt;/a&gt;", Rafe Needleman discusses his experience with different search engines and concludes that Google is no longer the best. Needleman asks: &lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;blockquote dir="ltr" style="MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px"&gt;
				&lt;p&gt;Is it time to dump &lt;a href="http://www.google.com/"&gt;&lt;font color="#660066"&gt;Google&lt;/font&gt;&lt;/a&gt; as your search engine? Lately I've been finding myself drifting away from my old friend. Newer services do just as much -- or more -- than Google does, and they do it with nicer interfaces. &lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;/blockquote&gt;
		&lt;p&gt;He points out some interesting tidbits like the traffic features of  Windows Live and Yahoo and how Ask.com has pop-up images of sites. I actually went to all the sites he listed and frankly, I don't understand what he sees.&lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;p&gt;Take maps for instance. I picked my hometown, Ann Arbor, MI. Yahoo Maps and Windows Live show lots of detail but is it a better interface than Google Maps. I don't see how. I think the Google map looks better but Yahoo and Windows look good to so it is just a matter of taste I suppose. What I didn't like was how slow Yahoo and Windows Live were. Google Maps draws twice as fast on my box and zooms faster as well. Speed wins the day here.&lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;p&gt;Ask.com wasn't even a contest. The results were less relevant, the format harder to read and the speed again was much less than Google. And I actually like the ads since they are relevant and often times point to options I hadn't consider. There's a reason Google owns 90% of the market.&lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;p&gt;One point we do agree on is Google Desktop is a real drag on your system. I've tried it a couple of times only to have to uninstall it because of the drain it puts on my system. I have not tried Yahoo Desktop Search but then I generally stay away from Yahoo products because of  all the advertising and junk mail I end up getting when I use their stuff. &lt;/p&gt;
		&lt;p&gt;Sorry Rafe, but for this middle-aged techie, Google still rules.&lt;/p&gt;
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  <last_update>2007-07-25T02:56:24.828125Z</last_update>
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    <comment>
      <id>6c9f9e16-1d2b-4ad4-a223-09e962b085c6</id>
      <title>RE: Is it time to reconsider Google?</title>
      <date>2006-09-20T11:13:25.4439178-04:00</date>
      <author>JD</author>
      <email>jd.hodges@gmail.com</email>
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